Many construction projects require the installation of underground piping, conduit, cable, and other similar items. Typically, such installation involves the digging of a trench along a desired path using an excavator, trencher, tractor, or other construction equipment to remove dirt to form the trench and temporarily set aside the removed dirt. After the pipe, conduit, cable or other item is laid within the trench, the trench is backfilled with the removed dirt. However, to reduce adverse effects sometimes caused by the settling of the replaced dirt over time, the backfilling operation is often performed in series of sequentially repeated stages until the trench is entirely backfilled. Each stage includes the return of a portion of the previously removed dirt to the trench followed by compacting or packing of the returned dirt using a compactor or packer sometimes referred to as a “trench roller” that is designed and sized to compact or pack dirt within the trench.
In the past, construction workers had to get into the trenches in order to operate the trench rollers. Unfortunately, many construction workers were injured or killed as a result of trench cave-ins that occurred while the trench rollers were in use. To reduce the possibility of injury or death to construction workers due to trench cave-ins, today's trench rollers are remotely operated or controlled by construction workers via remote control devices such that construction workers no longer need to get into trenches to operate the trench rollers. However, trench rollers are, typically, repeatedly inserted into and removed from trenches during the stages of backfilling through the use of cables attached to the trench rollers at one end and to a crane or, frequently, the bucket of an excavator at the other end. To allow use of the trench rollers after insertion into trenches, construction workers must get into the trenches to detach the cables. And, to permit removal of the trench rollers from the trenches, construction workers must again get into the trenches to attach the cables. Because the construction workers are present within trenches during detachment and re-attachment of the cables, the construction workers are subjected to the possibility of trench cave-ins and to the corresponding possibility of injury or death resulting from such cave-ins.
Therefore, there is a need in the industry for apparatuses and methods that allow a trench roller to be inserted into, used, and removed from a trench absent intervention within the trench by a construction or other worker, and that solve these and other problems, deficiencies, and shortcomings of the present apparatuses and methods.